No Longer A Collector

Seems like a number of people have exited the hobby this year.

I have seven ounces pf platinum bullion coins. bought four years ago.
When inflation is taken into account, I have lost quite a lot of real value on them.
I have learned little about the bullion investment market, although I still have them.


I have stuck with ancients for nearly 50 years.
Have spent a great amount of consideration on every purchase I have made for every coin acquired, always buying at a good but fair price.
The acquisition of knowledge of ancient history has been to my great profit.

Although none of them was ever considered as an investment, the compounded value of the collection as a whole over an above inflation has resulted in a small gain of about 1 or 2% of real value.

Despite the real gain in value, I still have no intention of selling any of them. The collection will go to public auction, to sold out of my estate after I die to be benefit of my children.

halfamind has said it like it is.

NIFC coins have to be turned out by all mints around the World, just to stay in business and make profits to be returned to their stake holders, which for government mints, are the taxpayers.

Most transactions are now done electronically, which do not need coinage. That trend is increasing, eventually to the end point where a circulating coinage and notes are no longer required.

Unless under a government contract, private mints do not produce NIFC legal tender coinage. Instead, they can produce bullion coins for their own profit.

Hence my strictly numismatic interest in coins that no longer circulate, especially when it comes to my poor experience in bullion investment. .

You can still be coin enthusiast and stack bullion only. Hope you stick around!

I've helped about 4 people dispose of a "collection", of those 4, 3 were purely bullion, the coins were all circulated common date silver coins and a few silver eagles that were badly stored and tarnished. So the collection was basically bullion or junk silver.

The last 1 was what I would call a collection. And even that had a lot of bullion. Of the thousands of dollars in junk silver the person had, they had a few mint state Standing liberty coins, basically a half roll of MS63+ most full head coins in a pill bottle. Some had tarnish, but all were mint state. That set of about 30 coins was worth more than all the bullion /junk silver and the few gold coins the person had. The dealer sent them all in for grading, and just a few coins (MS65) were worth the most. That was a cool collection to see.

Mine will be left to my heirs. It will be up to them to keep for sentiment or to liquidate. If they choose the latter, then I could not care less if they fail to maximize their gain. Serves them right.

As for barelyhere you are still a collector. You are just collecting something different.